Accuracy of BP revolvers (group sizes)

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Rodwha, I'm not real sure what the twist rate on the Uberti and the Pietta 1860 Army is, I'm hoping that the Pietta shoots both round ball and the cartridges well. I can live with a slightly bigger group with a round ball as all I hunt with it are varmints during the summer, but I want a better group with the cartridges as I'll hunt deer with them.

I would welcome using your boolits as they have an excellent design. We'll see with the Pietta and how well it shoots the cartridges. :):thumbup:
 
Crawdad1 said:
Rodwha, I'm not real sure what the twist rate on the Uberti and the Pietta 1860 Army is, I'm hoping that the Pietta shoots both round ball and the cartridges well. I can live with a slightly bigger group with a round ball as all I hunt with it are varmints during the summer, but I want a better group with the cartridges as I'll hunt deer with them.

I would welcome using your boolits as they have an excellent design. We'll see with the Pietta and how well it shoots the cartridges. :):thumbup:
Click to expand...

PM me your address and I'll s be you some to try out.
 
Thanks for the additional target Crawdad, what is that approx group size for reference if you know? Was that also bench fired? Some other good info on this thread as well!

As for me, no, I'm not hunting or looking at doing competition, I am using this as a learning experience and also a gun tinkering one, trying to make my own shooting skills better, but also to improve the accuracy of the gun itself.

I've made good strides with the gun through a bit of trigger work, reducing cylinder play and gap, reaming the cylinders to be approx .001" over the groove diameter, cutting the forcing cone, cutting a target crown. This reduced group sizes from maybe 12 or 15 inches with flyers down to 6 or 7. (25yards) From the bench. yes, it was shooting all over the place before any work, even from the bench. Made it no fun to shoot.

I've also started narrowing in on loading procedures that are helping, the single biggest one was switching from pyrodex to actual black. Pyrodex was shooting with very inconsistent pressures, mostly (I think) due to the compress-ability of the powder making it near impossible to be consistent. The Goex just goes crunch a little bit and doesn't go anymore. This shaved my group sizes down to maybe 5 inches (25yards), also from the bench.

If I can get my bench technique down a bit better and work up my best load, I want to see what my gun is actually capable of, and then I can move to working on me while I'm standing unsupported and know what the "benchmark" is for my gun.

Oh, I also wouldn't mind shooting better with my ~$150 soot and flame throwing gun, than all those at the line carrying their super expensive plastic blast-o-matics. :)
 
BigBoom, no, I didn't take a measurement of the group size. I'll post more targets while I'm working up a load for this 1860 Army repro I bought. All the targets posted from me are barrel resting on sand bags, two hand hold at 25 yards.
 
BigBoom, the first thing I check on these revolver is what you did as a lot of these revolvers are overbored. Its now up to you and range time figuring out what load this revolver likes.

After 2 range sessions with this 1860 repro I think I have some information on how it shoots. I think that this revolver prefers the 457 ball over the 454 ball. And I think it likes the ball at the very top of the chamber. Until I can get additional range time I'm not going to assume anything about getting the best accuracy. I'm up to using 2 OxYoke wads to move the ball closer to the top of the chamber . At the next range session I'll go with 3 OxYoke wads to see what she does using the same 25 grains of GOEx 3Fg and 457 ball.

When sighting in I change one component at a time either powder charge, caliber of the ball, chamber depth, wadding.
 
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unless there is something wrong with your gun (improperly set barrel, front sight etc) your gun is as accurate as it is ever going to be, without major reworking it. Same holds true with any modern gun, handgun or rifle.
The rest is up to you
Been shooting guns since the 1950's Was properly trained in the Marine Corps.
From there it is practice practice practice.
My average shooting distance is 20 to 25 yds. My groups are normally 2 to 3 inches offhand 1 hand
My best ever was 5 rounds through one hole in a coffee can
and since everyone will call BULL here's pictures of the can. Course I can't prove the distance but it was right at 20 yd.
Probably could never do it again It was 1 handed standing
 

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Have you tried working up different loads? Since this is a brass frame I guess you don't want to go more than 25 grains but you can try 15, 20 and 25 grains and use a filler(like Cream of Wheat cereal) to make the ball seat close to the chamber mouth. Try it with 2F and 3F and with .451, .454 and .457 balls. Just make sure the balls shave a ring of lead, if they are too small to shave a ring then don't use them because you could have a chainfire. Try different lube, I have heard various things about Bore Butter, some say it's great but some say it's too sticky and it fills up the grooves and causes loss of accuracy. A lot of people like a mixture of 50/50 Crisco and beeswax melted together in a double boiler. Use more or less beeswax to make the lube harder or softer.
 
Tagging on to Crawdad1's post #32 about being "overbored"...

It is not uncommon for the chamber mouths to be smaller diameter than the barrel bore. This results in an incomplete seal between the projectile and the rifling. Dead pure soft lead projectiles will "bump up" a bit when fired due to gas pressures pounding the back of the projectile, but if the difference in the chamber mouth diameter and the bore is too great, you can still get gasses blowing forward, which of course hurts accuracy.

So it's a good Idea to compare the two measurements. The simple redneck way is to push a pure lead ball through the bore (I've done it with a wooden dowel but that gives some folks the vapors; an old brass cleaning rod or similar should do the job) and then see if the ball will fall into the chambers in the cylinder. You want the rifled ball to fall in the chamber with the rifled surface of the ball facing the chamber sides. If the ball does not fall into the chamber, then you know the chamber is smaller than the barrel. The cure is to ream out the chamber mouths to about 1/1000" larger than the bore, so that the ball is squeezed a skosh after it leaves the cylinder and engages the rifling completely. If you are using home cast projectiles, they should be pure dead soft lead.

The downside is, the reaming must be done by someone who has good equipment and knows what they are doing. I ruined a cylinder because I didn't! And you may find that pressures go up a tad because you are getting a good gas seal and not letting some escape past the projectile. You will know this is happening because spent cap fragments will get blown off the nipples more frequently. And you may have to use a bigger ball after the reaming...one that still shaves a ring of lead when seated.

Anyway, it's just one more thing to consider when trying to maximize accuracy. The problem is common in Ruger cartridge revolvers also. Action jobs by good gunsmiths usually include opening chamber mouths.
 
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I was just reading an article in the September 2017 Guns of the Old West magazine where one of the writers tests Emf's (Pietta) 1858 Buffalo Bill Commemorative. Author "La Vista" Bill Bell posts some impressive sandbagged 10 yard groups where all the rounds are touching, in his article - Only the best for Bill.

I just returned to Africa after a 3 week vacation back home in Missouri. I was shooting my pair of Pietta 1860 Army revolvers almost everyday at my backyard range's 25yd steel gong. I didn't do any accuracy work this time around. My last trip home (Dec. 2016) I shot the below 5 shot group with my 2015 Pietta 1860 Army at 21ft using 2 hands standing, with a Hornady .454 dia ball, wonder wad, 30gr of FFFg Schuetzen BP, and Remington #10 caps. I imagine I could do better if I had some more quality time at home and shot more at paper. Overall I was impressed by how well these guns shoot.

30574118734_18e67046ff_b.jpg


AR15.com has an on going thread of BP C&B Revolver groups with certain requirements (timer, distance, etc.). I'd meant to run that this recent vacation but didn't get around to it.
 
Mr Drobs, no black powder shooting in Africa? I migrate between two homes, North and South. Black powder guns are inexpensive enough that I keep several in both locations. I call them my North and South guns.
 
The Navy gets particular about those things. I did bring my percussion cap maker back here with me. Figure I could bang out some caps (sans priming powder) some really slow evening or day off. Doubt anyone would even have an idea what they are.

I was contemplating on the 13.5 hour plane ride from Chicago to Qatar about shipping the lock of a flint lock here and slowly carving my own stock from a 2x4...
 
Thanks for all the additional info on all this.

I have done extensive work on the gun, I bored and honed the cylinders to 0.451, and my barrel slugged at 0.450. The cylinders were .446 before and shot terribly due to the undersized projectile. Cutting and polishing the very very rough forcing cone and putting a crown on the end of barrel which was really out of square also helped. Removing the cylinder bolt wiggle (by punching the brass next to the bolt slot, easy fix for a brass frame) helped the cylinder stay lined up with the barrel, as well as other small things...

I reamed out the cylinders with a .449 reamer, and then honed them up to .451. I used a mill dialing in on each cylinder bore and a proper honing machine, so did it the right way. I used to be able to use .451 balls, but now must use .454 at a minimum and just got some .457 that I will try soon.

Once I have the gun shooting as well as I can get it to shoot, I will start a new thread detailing from start to finish what I did with the gun as it was a crap shooter to start, and is much much better now.
 
oh, timtoolman, I had to lookup the 50 cal ROA. very nice, and good shooting
 
drobs said:
The Navy gets particular about those things. I did bring my percussion cap maker back here with me. Figure I could bang out some caps (sans priming powder) some really slow evening or day off. Doubt anyone would even have an idea what they are.

I was contemplating on the 13.5 hour plane ride from Chicago to Qatar about shipping the lock of a flint lock here and slowly carving my own stock from a 2x4...
Click to expand...

Post some photos of the results...........................:rofl::D
 
just found this thread discussing mostly the use of conicals, but also in reference to round ball. Gatofeo mentions being able to get 1" groups on a really good day from a rest. I'm not really interested in shooting conicals, these are cap n BALL revolvers after all right? :) and it seems like they actually shoot more accurately with ball anyway.

https://thefiringline.com/forums/sh...23310b3af37ab588fa7b5f&p=3675554&postcount=22
 
BigBoomD said:
just found this thread discussing mostly the use of conicals, but also in reference to round ball. Gatofeo mentions being able to get 1" groups on a really good day from a rest. I'm not really interested in shooting conicals, these are cap n BALL revolvers after all right? :) and it seems like they actually shoot more accurately with ball anyway.

https://thefiringline.com/forums/sh...23310b3af37ab588fa7b5f&p=3675554&postcount=22
Click to expand...

Both my ROA and NMA shoot just as accurately with a ball as they do with various conicals.

During the Civil War these were most certainly used almost exclusively with conicals in paper cartridges. And the molds then had a ball and a conical cavity. And look at the shape of the loading window/port. It's pointy just like the conicals were, right?
 
That reminds me DD4lifeusmc sent me some conicals to try out with an order of components I bought from him late last year.
Forgot all about them when I was home... next vacation.
 
Also, the 'Picket' bullets for the Walker. So conical bullets were associated and loaded in these revolvers from the getgo. But if someone doesn't want to use them then that's his call.
 
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